Part of the Job
by einstinette
Summary: After a particular case, Garcia has a breakdown, and the team is there to lift her up with words of encouragement. And all of the things that they handled... it's all a part of the job. Better than the summary. Please read and review.


Chapter 1

Part of the Job

_**Disclaimer:**_

_**I don't own Criminal Minds. **__**L That thought makes me sad, so on with the story….**_

**Third Person POV:**

The BAU team sat around on their jet on the way home from a difficult case. A man, Thomas Siegler, had been kidnapping kids from surrounding states and holding them in an underground complex. Boys, girls, it didn't matter. He would sexually assault them all. And when the boys were old enough, he forced them to touch the girls too. Here was this man, a guidance counselor, that had broken his students' trust. He had turned innocent children into hardened teens that were forced to prey on those younger than them just as they had been preyed on. Despicable.

The seven members of the team sat there, all of them engrossed in their thoughts. Reid, Prentiss, JJ, Hotch, and Rossi's minds all swam with ideals and how this last one blew them all to shreds as though they had never existed, and perhaps they had not. Because if they did, could such a perversion of humanity even exist?

Penelope Garcia sat in numb shock. This was one of the only cases that she had been into the field on, and it was one of the most real that they had ever taken on. Her stomach felt queasy and the entire world seemed to be spinning out of her tenuous control.

Derek Morgan sat across from her. As a kid, he had been molested. He understood the feelings of revulsion, and self-loathing that accompanied it. He knew it was a silly wish, but he didn't want anyone else to ever have feel like that. Not even his worst enemy, and so every time he thought about the children, he grew more and more angry. They had lost a chance before it had really even been given to them. Their innocence was gone forever. No matter what they did, it would still linger behind them like the sour stench of one who had rolled in the garbage, and it would taint every part of their life from there on out.

But Morgan always put others before himself, and right now he could see that Garcia was slowly and surely coming apart. She had only seen these types of things on her screen from the relative safety of her bubble, but this time the children had been right in front of her, and needless to say, it had left its mark on the techie as it would on any type of human being with even the slightest bit of morals. "Hey, are you okay, Baby Girl?" He asked, drawing the attention of the other five sharp-eyed profilers.

"No, Derek, I'm not," she was hyperventilating. "They were just kids. How could he do that? How could he do that?"

They all looked at her with pity. All of the field agents had seen so many terrible things in their careers, but for the most part, she had remained untouched. They all remembered those first few crimes, those that made you rethink whether or not humans had any decency left. Whether or not there was any good still lingering about in the world.

Morgan stood, sitting next to one of his closest friends. Her blond head, bent down, her eyes holding back tears. "Listen to me," he ordered. "Siegler was a sick man with sick habits, but we stopped him. I know it's disgusting but it's all a part of the job."

The job. The job that had to be done. That point brought a question to the barely contained woman. Before this job, she had been essentially carefree and whimsical, but with every case she could feel herself slowly changing. "I don't think I'll ever smile again. I want to smile, Derek."

He saw the tears pooling in her eyes and he gently wiped them away. "It seems like that, but in a few months or so you'll find that laughter comes easily again. And with someone as happy and charismatic as you are, it probably won't take that long."

"But I'm not happy like that anymore."

He nodded sympathetically, knowing exactly how she felt. Like she would never smile again. Like this would be something that she would constantly carry with her, and she was right. No matter what, she would never be able to get those images out of her mind. "A part of the job."

"But how do I stop this job from changing me?" she demanded. Morgan didn't quite know how to answer that.

Thankfully, the others had been listening. All of them turned to her, knowing that she would need some support, someone to tell her that everything would be okay.

As always, Spencer Reid was the first person with an answer. "Well according to certain studies, finding a distraction helps," he lectured. "For example I read, learn and memorize things," he chuckled. True, it wasn't what a normal man would do, but Reid was anything but normal. Besides, if his brain was full of facts, then he couldn't possibly hold any of the awful things that he saw from day to day.

"I spend time with Jack," Aaron Hotchner smiled at the thought of his son. Sometimes, no all of the time, that boy was the only thing that kept him sane. He forced his father out of the deepest parts of his brain and into a healthier place where there was still magic and fairies and no one had to grow old.

"I cook," Rossi shrugged. He was Italian, so of course, it was his passion, and it did help him to attract the women, which was his other passion. And… cutting vegetables and using his hands worked out some of the thoughts that would keep him up at night.

"I shop or work out," Prentiss added as she wondered what sort of sale was going on at home. She was going to need one. The violence and the thrill of the purchase was enough to get her to forget if only for a little while.

"I play with my son and relax with a nice, hot bubble bath." Just imagining those bubbles made JJ smile a little. She couldn't wait to get home, and maybe let the tension in her body and mind ease just a little, just enough so that she could hug her fiancée and child with relief that they were both fine.

"And I take care of my property and my dog, Clooney," Morgan finished. Clooney. The dog needed him as much as Morgan needed it. The security, something to warm the cold side of the bed that reminded him so much of work and the bodies that he encountered there.

"Staying busy is good, but it still helps to have a little perspective," Rossi explained in his sometimes incomprehensible way.

"What?" The curvy blond asked, confused.

"I think he means it's important to understand _**why**_ we do what we do. There's a quote by Albert Pine that says "What we do for ourselves dies within us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal."" Reid rattled off as though it was nothing. Though to him, it was nothing. "It's interesting really. All that humans basically want is to be forever remembered, and this quote makes the point that he only way to do that is to be truly altruistic."

"So… to help people like we do?" Garcia asked quietly.

"Exactly Princess."

Before anyone could say anything else the light came on that told them all to take their seats. "Don't let it consume you too much, Garcia, or it'll drive you crazy," JJ suggested her mind, stuck on her first real case…

She nodded, but still felt no real sense of relief. They all sat except for Hotch who made it a point to sit next to her and look the techie directly in her eyes. He had always believed in her. Behind the bright clothes, overt flirting, and dry wit beat a very sensitive heart. It was exactly what the BAU needed to keep functioning. Though he sometimes wondered what she herself needed.

"I want to tell you something that my mentor told me after the first case that shook me up. Jut think about it and I hope it'll help you as much as it's helped me," Hotch paused. "It's not the world that does those things. It's the people in the world, some good and some bad that create our job. And through it all, the world will not change, but we must so that we can be effective. So, when you begin to doubt just remember that what will be, will be." And with that the leader of the team returned to his seat, leaving her to think as he had been left all those years ago.

And there you have it. No definite answer was reached, but that's part of life. Perhaps, there is no 'perfect answer' like a mathematical solution. Maybe the only point of life is to live and take things as they come. After all, the only accurate measure of a person is how they respond under pressure.

So, no Garcia still didn't have an answer, and yes she was still slowly changing, but that's when she realized that she wasn't changing. She was slowly _**evolving **_as her perception of the outside world grew larger. And she realized that there _**was**_ evil in the world. Evil that would be here as long as there was a world. Evil that it was her job to stop…. And maybe for now that was enough.

**A/N:**

**My second Criminal Minds Fiction. Man, this one has been put away forever, and I just found it. Well, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.**

**Read and review to let me know that I'm not crazy and just talking to myself here... **

**Keep reading and I'll keep writing. Oh and review. Flames are welcome. They're what keep me warm and toasty at night. ;)**

_**Remember: Reviews = happy camper. Happy camper = quicker updates. Quicker updates = you reading more. It's a cycle. Keep it going!**_

_**Yours truly, madly, and deeply,**_

_**Einstinette**_


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